"What's the matter? What's the matter?"
said the gentleman for whom the door was opened." by E. A. Abbey.
American Household Edition (1876), first illustration for The Chimes: A Goblin Story, "First Quarter," in
Dickens's Christmas Stories, 10 x 13.4
framed, p. 48. [Click on the image to enlarge it.] See commentary below.

In illustrating this cautionary tale for the Hungry Forties,
John Leech and his team of artists (including
Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, and Clarkson Stanfield) had begun with the
supernatural agents of Toby Veck's social reintegration, depicting cavorting
goblins in "The Spirits of the Bells" and "The Tower of the Chimes" in advance
of beginning the text with an ornate capital "T" containing a square church
tower and, in the filigree work below, Trotty and Meg sitting on the church
steps ("The Dinner on the Steps"). Abbey begins instead with a realistic
realisation of the story's class divisions. The diminutive Trotty has his finger
to his lip, as if uncertain about what to say as his superiors, at least a head
taller and much broader than the little ticket-porter, filling the centre and
right register in top-hats and topcoats, analyse his lunch as a model of
political economy.

Various interpretations of Trotty's dinner al fresco.
Left: Richard Doyle's illustration of "The Dinner on the
Steps". Centre: John Leech's illustration of the Trotty's being upbraided
for eating tripe: "Alderman Cute and His Friends"
(1844). Right: Fred Barnard's illustration of Trotty Veck's earlier savouring
the ordor of hot tripe in Meggy's basket on the steps of St. Dunstan's:
"'No,' said Toby after another sniff. 'It's — It's
mellower than Polonies'" (1878).

Passage illustrated by E. A. Abbey:

"What's the matter, what's the matter!' said the gentleman for
whom the door was opened; coming out of the house at that kind of light-heavy
pace — that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot —
with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, wearing creaking
boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, may come out of his house: not
only without any abatement of his dignity, but with an expression of having
important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. "What's the matter! What's the
matter!"

"Don't leave it there," exclaimed the gentleman. "Bring it here,
bring it here. So! This is your dinner, is it?"

"Yes, sir," repeated Trotty, looking with a fixed eye and a watery
mouth, at the piece of tripe he had reserved for a last delicious tit-bit; which
the gentleman was now turning over and over on the end of the fork.

Two other gentlemen had come out with him. One was a low-spirited
gentleman of middle age, of a meagre habit, and a disconsolate face; who kept
his hands continually in the pockets of his scanty pepper-and-salt trousers,
very large and dog's-eared from that custom; and was not particularly well
brushed or washed. The other, a full-sized, sleek, well-conditioned gentleman,
in a blue coat with bright buttons, and a white cravat. This gentleman had a
very red face, as if an undue proportion of the blood in his body were squeezed
up into his head; which perhaps accounted for his having also the appearance of
being rather cold about the heart.

He who had Toby's meat upon the fork, called to the first one by
the name of Filer; and they both drew near together. Mr. Filer being exceedingly
short-sighted, was obliged to go so close to the remnant of Toby's dinner
before he could make out what it was, that Toby's heart leaped up into his
mouth. But Mr. Filer didn't eat it.

"This is a description of animal food, Alderman," said Filer,
making little punches in it with a pencil-case, 'commonly known to the labouring
population of this country, by the name of tripe." ["First Quarter," 48-49]

Abbey's illustration of this scene compared to those by Leech, Doyle, and
Barnard

In the original 1844 sequence of thirteen illustrations by four artists
working in loose collaboration and directed by Dickens himself, John Leech
provided five pictures, as in A Christmas Carol
(1843). His first and second woodcuts respectively depict Trotty Veck running
through the streets of London, and Alderman Cute and his hangers-on confronting
Trotty about the economic downside of the of poor man's eating tripe
("Alderman Cute and his Friends"), an
illustration which E. A. Abbey reinterpreted in a more realistic vein in the
American Household Edition. Fred Barnard, having less than half-a-dozen plates
to commit to this piece of social realism, elected to show Trotty's interaction
with Sir Joseph Bowley and his wife rather in the library at his townhouse than
with Alderman Cute and his hangers-on in front of the Church of St.
Dunstan's-in-the-East (originally built about 1100, but replaced in 1818, and
therefore something of an anachronism in this story) on New Year's Eve, 1843.

Barnard's illustration depicting only Trotty and his daughter in closeup
occupies almost three-quarters of a page, and at 13.7 cm long by 10.8 cm wide
certainly establishes the father-and-daughter relationship as the principal
relationship of the novella. Abbey, in contrast, relegates Meggy and her fiance
Richard to the background, and gives them mere observer status. Moreover,
whereas Leech depicts them as young lovers, thoroughly engrossed in each other
and blissfully unaware of the scene unfolding behind them, Abbey moves the
couple into the background and does not particularise Richard as a blacksmith,
giving him a working man's cloth cap and having him protectively holding Meg's
hand (but in no other way signalling the nature of their relationship).

As in Barnard's initial plate, Abbey provides a sketchy backdrop, old Saint
Dunstan's Church, by providing area railings (left) and the columns of the
church porch (centre, rear). Richard Doyle's representation of the church's
Gothic lantern-tower in "The Dinner on the
Steps" and Stanfield's "The Old Church",
emphasizing the Gothic lantern tower of old Saint Dunstan's, is far more
atmospheric, but reduces considerably the importance of the figures below
by subordinating them to the architectural elements in both 1844 engravings. E.
A. Abbey merely suggests the exterior setting, concentrating instead on the
figures in the foreground: the off-centre, diminutive figure of the
ticket-porter, and the tail- and top-coated gentlemen who are critically
examining his lunch as if it were some sort of exotic plant specimen or ancient
artifact. Neither Household Edition illustration suggests the seasonal setting
of cold winds, ice, and snow since there is no slush on the pavement and no
icicles, although Richard (left rear) and the gentlemen are wearing gloves, and
(unlike Leech's young blacksmith) is not in his shirtsleeves.

There is much in Abbey's reinterpretation of Leech's 1844 "Alderman Cute and
Friends" which suggests the new Sixties style of Luke Fildes' illustrations for
Dickens's last serialised novel, The Mystery of Edwin
Drood — in particular, compare Abbey's disposition and modelling of
the figures on a narrow forestage to the same features in "Durdles Cautions Mr. Sapsea Against Boasting",
an illustration of comparable size and orientation in which a man of the
labouring classes (as identified by his clothing) mingles with his fashionably
clad social superiors with an urban backdrop sketched in behind the figures.

Scanned image and text by Philip V.
Allingham. Formatting, color correction, and linking by
George P. Landow. [You may use these images
without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you
(1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or
cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

References

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z:
The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On
File, 1998.